Positive Negatives, founded by Benjamin Dix, brings social and humanitarian issues to light through the production of animations, comics and podcasts. They integrate ethnographic research with illustrations and adapt life-stories into art. Their methodology consists of direct collaboration with the participants, by travelling to meet them face-to-face and interviewing them about their personal experiences. They then spend time immersed in the local culture to further understand the context and to take photographs which will later be given the artists as references. Once the drafted script receives the approval of the participant – who may choose to remain anonymous for safety reasons – the script and references are passed to the artist. The final result is then released as widely as possible, as a way to reach the general public globally and showcase the personal stories behind everyday headlines. One of their most recent works is North Star Fading, the story of four Eritrean refugees who dangerously crossed Ethiopia, Sudan and Libya to reach Europe. The animation is a consistent zoom into the path ahead of them. The illustrations, alongside the audio and voice over, cause the viewer to feel absorbed and hypnotised, tasting a small portion of the overwhelming confusion and terror these testimonies share.
Tag: digital storytelling
Migration Museum
The Migration Museum presents exhibitions and events which explore themes of integration, migration, and the identities of the people who migrate from and to Britain. The range of their methods and activities vary greatly, from multi-disciplinary storytelling approaches, to the use of visual medias, such as film, photography, and performing arts, to more alternative ways of engaging with the public, such as their annual Imprints fundraising walks across London, in which the walkers can explore the migration history of the city. The Migration Museum has staged several successful exhibitions, such as: 100 Images of Migration, a collection of photographs which tell the story of migrants in the UK and what their experiences means to them; Call Me By My Name, a multimedia exhibition identifying the complexity of the migration crisis; and No Turning Back, an exploration several stories of migration which have changed the course of Britain’s history. The Migration Museum provides a vast range of educational programs as well, including workshops, teaching resources and partnerships. Their educational materials are based on the themes explored in exhibitions. All materials are downloadable and are provided across the UK to primary, secondary and university students. The Migration Museum aims to bring studies of migration to the school curriculum and to expand their audiences beyond BAME communities, migrants and refugees, reaching those of a lower socio-economic background and those with a less positive attitude towards migration.
Migration Trail
Migration Trail is an audio-visual project that uses maps and data visualisation in order to retrace the journeys of people travelling from Turkey and North Africa to Europe in search for a better life. The journeys can be followed in real time and include the fictional characters’ thoughts, which can be sent as messages (written by Elnathan John and Nadia Asfour) to one’s phone, viewed on the website, or listened to on the project’s podcast. Migration Trail started in 2014 in reaction to little attention the issue of migration to Europe had been getting in the media. The real-time story-telling project was officially launched in 2017 as a way to address and convey the urgency and immediacy that the issue demanded, but lacked.
Digital Storytelling with the Portuguese-speaking Community in Stockwell
In 2017 sociologist Elena Vacchelli and Digital Storytelling facilitator Tricia Jenkins conducted a pilot study with the Portuguese-speaking community in Stockwell. The workshop deployed the creative and collaborative method of Digital Storytelling (DS) to look at the life experiences of the Portuguese speaking community in gentrifying Stockwell and see how they connect to broader issues identified in Stockwell. A recent report by Nogueira, Porteous and Guerreiro (2015) suggests that the roughly 35,000 Portuguese speaking migrants in Stockwell (South London) span across different generations of migration and across different continents including Europe, Africa, South America and Asia. The report identified key areas of concern affecting the Portuguese speaking community ranging from immigration status for extra-European Portuguese speaking migrants; poor English; unsuitable housing; isolated elderly people and mental health; substance misuse; domestic violence. Whilst the community remains concentrated in and around the area known as Little Portugal in Stockwell, where we held the DS workshop, both the census and the growing number of cafes and bars ran by Portuguese Speakers indicate that members of the community now live throughout the borough. The Stockwell Partnership played a major role in facilitating the recruitment of the research participants for this pilot project.
The ‘social encounter’ of the DS workshop encourages participants to reflect on and share personal narratives which are borne out of a dialogical relationship amongst the group. DS aims for the realisation of a two to five minutes audio-visual clip whose imaginary is built on the recording of the workshop participants’ voice reading the story s/he wrote. The resulting clip is a combination of principally still images complementing the recording of the participant’s voice telling the story that s/he has developed through a series of creative writing type of activities. Digital Storytelling is achieved through a dynamic rapport of mutual support and co-production during the workshop aimed at helping participants to find their voice and tell a story which is important to them. Participants are also supported in transforming their story into an audio-visual clip that can be shared with the immediate group and disseminated further.
Researchers: Elena Vacchelli (University of Greenwich) and Tricia Jenkins (Goldsmiths, University of London)